Imperial Brands has called for the guidance from the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) to be strengthened to encourage consumers to purchase replaceable pods or refills, instead of treating reusable vape devices in the same way as disposable vapes and throwing them out after a single use.
“The ban on disposable vapes is meaningless unless consumers also purchase pods separately and use multiple pods with the one reusable vape device,” said Imperial’s head of corporate and legal Affairs for UK & Ireland, Deirdre Healy.
“Otherwise, consumers are treating reusable devices as a one-use only device. It’s also better value for consumers to buy pods separately and pop them on the reusable device rather than buy multiple reusable devices.”
Imperial, makers of the blu brand, has called for Defra’s guidance to be amended to strictly specify that refills (pods or e-liquid refill bottles) must be separately and readily available for sale. These must be compatible with the reusable vaping devices being sold in the physical retail premises as well, it says.
Healy went on to reject accusations that suppliers aren’t providing vape pods for sale with reusable devices: “We have 15 flavours of blu vape pods available for sale throughout 35,000 retail outlets in the UK. We want the disposable vape ban to work. We want less electronic waste in the UK. We want consumers to use replaceable pods in their reusable vape devices.
“With the ban on disposable vapes still in its early stage, it remains important to continue to promote best practice for consumers. This includes educating them to purchase prefilled vape pods separately and use multiple pods with one reusable vape device.
“Retailers can benefit by delivering this value to shoppers. Proactively encouraging consumers to return to store and repurchase the prefilled pods will help generate store loyalty and free up basket spend to purchase more. Ensuring consumers are also aware of the available vape pod flavour options will underpin sales activity,” Healy concluded.
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